


Unusual Blood Abnormalities

by Xelfi



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Homestuck Shipping Olympics, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Paranormal, Rainbow Drinkers, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 11:25:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/650024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xelfi/pseuds/Xelfi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last fic I wrote for the HSO bonus rounds.  The procrastination is over!  Or is it???</p><p>Prompt: Paranormal Romance + Urban Fantasy, Kanaya♦Karkat</p><p>You never knew just how much she meant to you until she was gone.  Surprisingly, the universe granted you a chance to tell her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unusual Blood Abnormalities

**Author's Note:**

> This one was my favorite fill in the HSO; hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did writing it. :)
> 
> I personally believe that 'love' can be used to describe the feelings involved in all quadrants (and yes the word *is* part of canon troll vocabulary), so hopefully that doesn't throw anybody off at the end.

You'd never actually met her in person, but it wasn't hard to remember her face from the countless memories of chatting with her over shitty viewports during your many days of mutual insomnia. She'd mentioned once that she found the sunlight unusually invigorating, which was really weird of her but you'd always dismissed it as part of her stupid rainbow drinker fantasies. There'd never been a point where you considered a significantly more realness factor in her interests--you were just glad that there was someone out there who was awake and trustworthy when the dayterrors claimed yet another of your attempts to sleep properly.

That was why you were so devastated when, after two days of terror-stricken stumbling to your husktop only to see her faded, offline icon, you'd learned that she'd been culled due to an unusual blood abnormality during a random health inspection in her area. Not only had you lost a friend--a really *good* friend--but her manner of passing did nothing to quell your paranoia regarding your own unusual blood abnormality. You found yourself becoming even more of a recluse, never even leaving your hive at all anymore, and sustained yourself entirely on the random animal corpses your lusus dragged home instead of venturing out yourself to gather more well-rounded sources of nutrition. It was an extremely shitty way to live, but you couldn't trust public places. Kanaya had been browsing through a small retail establishment when the drones had sectioned off the entire business sector. She would have been safe if she'd stayed out in her isolated desert hive that night.

You, on the other hand, are probably not safe at all even in your hive, because your stupid wiggler self had chosen a lawnring of all things, surrounded at all sides by other trolls in a designated residential area. A perfect draw for a random inspection. If you'd actually been smart, you would be living in a tree or cave in the middle of nowhere like some trolls you knew that you would never berate ever again for their lifestyle choices. Even withdrawing yourself from society was probably more counter-productive than anything--it was only a matter of time before your neighbors started to wonder why they weren't seeing you around and how long they should wait before breaking in to loot your assumed corpse, and with your luck they'd catch you defenseless on the load gaper.

So, when you hear the screaming one late afternoon, only a week or so since she disappeared from your life forever, you think that's it; your time is up. There's no use even trying to run or hide because the drones are supposed to have some sort of heat vision or something because warmbloods are frequent runners. They can plainly see you sitting on your ass in front of your husktop, staring at your offline chumproll since you'd woken up five hours ago, mentally constructing mashed up stitched together conversations from what you remember of ones that actually occurred. You couldn't bring yourself to just reread old logs, because that just underlined the fact that she was gone. You would rather delude yourself into imagining a new troll log unfolding before your eyes. Now that reality is rearing it's ugly head, though, you're at least able to look forward to whatever awaited you on the other side of your culling. It was better than dwelling on what was left of your life. Either you'd be wiped from existence entirely, erasing all the pain, fear and regret, or you'd actually be able to see her again in whatever afterlife gathered the rejects of troll society. Neither of those possibilities sounded so bad, really.

It's weird how numb you feel when you rise up to look out the window to watch death approach. Maybe you're in shock or something. Maybe you've been in shock all week? That would explain a lot. Some of the others said things like how they're pretty sure you were lobotomised or something based on your more recent text messages. Maybe they're right, because it sure feels like there's a gaping hole somewhere inside of you. The bodies outside have a distinct lack of gaping holes, by the way. Not a whole lot of blood, either. Not a whole lot of drones, for that matter, since you can't even see one--if they looked anything like they did in the movies, anyway--unless you counted the glowing, bloodstained troll that looked just like Kanaya if Kanaya would ever be caught dead in such dirty, torn up clothes. If Kanaya dragged trolls from their hives to drain their blood by waning daylight like the rainbow drinkers in those novels she collected just as avidly as you hoarded romcoms. She looks up to see you staring, and releases the latest corpse, allowing it to crumple at her feet. Her mouth moves, but she's too far away to hear or lip-read, and maybe she realizes that because she begins her approach, walking straight toward you.

Your respiteblock is on the second floor, but that doesn't slow her down much. She seems to have forgotten the concept of doors, because she just crawls up the exterior wall and smashes through your window. You managed to avoid the shower of glass by backing up when you realized her intent, but now you're not sure what to do. Was all of this even really happening? Or were you actually just passed out on your keyboard and dreaming up this strange and disturbing scenario where she got to be the dangerous creature of the daylight and you were the swooning pale interest standing between her and indiscriminate mass murder just like in the stories? Was this just you inventing a situation that might possibly result in some semblance of happiness the universe has always kept well out of reach?

The glass shards had pierced her skin and now she's bleeding rainbows, blood taken from points all over the spectrum, slight differences in density preventing it all from mixing into a murky brown. You can see the same colors saturating her previously solid jade irises, reminding you of your efforts to hide your own bright red pair until you simply stopped going outside and disabled viewport chatting last week. Her eyes are focused entirely on them as she pulls herself up from the floor, and she speaks haltingly as though she has to force the words out past the monster she's become.

"I. Found you. Always. Wondered. Why grey. Red. So red. Always. Liked red. Karkat..." 

Her voice is the same. It's her, right? It's not just your imagination, right? "Kanaya?" you ask, and your voice cracks with emotion and recent disuse while your vision blurs pink with tears. You want this to be real. Even if she springs forward and drains you dry of every drop, ironically preserving your blood anonymity to the end, you want this to be real.

She starts forward, limbs suddenly awkward and moving in strange jerking motions. "Karkat. Please. Stop me."

She's holding herself back, so you go to her. Her face is so cold beneath your hands, colder than jade should ever be, and your unusual warmth must have shot straight through to whatever blood parasite was reanimating her corpse and kicked it in the bulge because her body suddenly settles and a greater sense of self awareness flashes through her eyes, then you're both falling to your knees, crying, gasping for air, and the glass bites into your legs but the pain just means it's real. She's really here and not gone forever, and you can figure out the rest later because right now you just really need to say--

"I'm sorry I never had the shame globes to say how much I loved you while you were still alive."

She presses her forehead against yours and replies, "My final moments were occupied with similar regrets."


End file.
